Posts from the ‘Cour Saint Emilion’ Category

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IN SEPTEMBER LAST YEAR I produced a blog piece about the Cour Saint-Emilion in the 12th arrondissement. You can see it here.

Yesterday, on a beautiful autumnal day, I returned to this former ‘Entrepôt des Vins’, the wine warehouses in Bercy Village now transformed into restaurants and shops.

I walked along this 220 metre thoroughfare designed in 1990 by the French architects Valode and Pistre, with shops and restaurants on either side and the remains of the old railway line running along the pavé in centre.

New since I was here last are the traditional wooden games set up for everyone to play and a lot of people were taking advantage of them. As well as entertaining both children and adults alike, they added some distinctive sounds to the air.

Next to the Cour Saint-Emilion is the Parc de Bercy with its three connected gardens, The Romantic Garden, The Flowerbeds and The Meadows. This park is always worth a visit.

The Cour Saint-Emilion is an urban-renewal project retaining the 19th Century industrial architecture of the area and putting the former wine warehouses to good use. It’s a popular place and well worth a visit.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Paris with wonderful sunshine and the autumn leaves beginning to fall. I decided to go to Cour St. Emilion in the Bercy area of Paris in the 12th Arrondissement.

Named after the grand cru Bordeaux wine St. Emilion, the Cour, or courtyard, St. Emilion is in the area of the former wine warehouses of Bercy.

In the 19th century most wine arrived in Paris by boat and could only be sold in the city after passing through Customs. Huge quantities of wine from French vineyards were stored at Bercy in a series of long, low red brick warehouses. This ‘Entrepôt des Vins’ became the largest commercial wine distribution centre in the world.

By the late 20th century wine could be shipped directly from the French vineyards to the rest of the world without having to pass through Paris and so the need for the warehouses declined and eventually they were abandoned.

With the building of the new, automatic, Metro Line 14, Cour St. Emilion got its own Metro station and new life was breathed into the area. Today, the former wine warehouses have been transformed into shops and restaurants.

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About

This blog is dedicated to my recordings of the street sounds of Paris … and occasionally, to some other things too. I specialise in street recordings mostly in binaural stereo. I take my inspiration from the great twentieth-century street photographers who walked the streets seeking that elusive 'decisive moment'. For most of our history we have used artefacts, architecture, pictures and words to create a vision of our past. It’s only in the last thirty seconds or so on our historical clock that we have been able to capture and record sound. Almost all our sonic heritage has passed by unrecorded. That is why I, and many others, are dedicated to recording and archiving the sounds around us so that future generations will have the sounds of our time to explore, to study and to enjoy.